Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/1182394
t m c » p u l s e | n o v e m b e r 2 0 1 9 19 Rather, people should place more emphasis on treating and preventing high cholesterol through lifestyle choices and, if necessary, medication. "I see patients with high cholesterol every day. I see patients with plaques in their arteries every day, and I treat those plaques with medications, bal- looning and stenting and angioplasty," Madjid said. "This study has a good message for us, actually. It looks like, as human beings, we are susceptible to developing these plaques. There is an interplay of genes—and it looks like that goes back many thousands of years—and there is also a combination of lifestyle. You really want to detect these plaques very early and prevent them from giving you a heart attack." Lifestyle factors that contribute to inflammation, such as poor diet, smoking, pollution or infection, are especially harmful in compounding the effects of atherosclerosis and should be avoided, he added. "It's not only cholesterol sitting there which causes a heart attack. It's cholesterol with inflammation on top of that within the artery wall—that's the killer," said Madjid. "Humans are very susceptible to atherosclerosis … but the message is that heart attack is totally preventable. We can detect these plaques, we can prevent them and we can treat them." The mummies studied for this research succumbed to infection or disease—not high cholesterol, he noted. Like most ancient humans, they didn't live long enough to die from athero- sclerosis, but the sharp rise in human life expectancy means humans today can and do. Madjid, who has been fascinated by ancient cultures since primary school, hopes to expand his research to mummies from other parts of the world to see if cholesterol levels vary by geo- graphical region and time period.